Newsletter growth without social media?

Thanks for the comments everyone! A few follow up items based on the discussion

• @danieltadeyemi I've considered going after cross-promotion, but I'd like to try and get a few more subscribers first so I actually have something useful to offer someone else.
• @ToddInsights @AndrewKamphey Thanks for the thoughts, definitely agree that I need to find the right community. For some reason I convinced myself that Hacker News wasn't the right outlet but might need to revisit. I have started posting on LinkedIn occasionally when I publish a newsletter. Any other suggestions for good communities I should be looking into?
• @technically_bob Interesting that you guessed my target audience as academics, makes me wonder if my writing style is too formal. They're definitely part of my audience but I definitely want to accessible to people without a formal education. I also had to laugh when you pointed out my use of the word requirement. I'm an engineer and live and die by requirement documents so I suppose that may have slipped out! A better phrasing of my question might be: Is it naive to think I can grow a significant audience without heavily relying on social media promotion?

Hello, I think it's a great idea.
After a while social media conversions tank, so either way newsletter creators would have to use other growth channels.

An approach that could work is Cross-promotion. Reaching to newsletters that reach out to a similar audience as yours. Inserting guest posts into each other's newsletters asking subscribers to sign up if they're interested.

Hi @outWest 👋

Even the past week I've been helping some other IH about this subject, I hope I can provide you value here. 😉

Unless you are a Famous person, only those close to you will care about what you do with your life. People want you to entertain them or to provide them value.

👉 The first thing I'd suggest would be to stop using Social Media as the place where you post your personal life and start using it to provide value or entertain other people.

That being said, I'd suggest providing value and under this way:
a) go on Instagram, start creating Carousels/Slideshows, look up for what are the best hashtags to use, and follow for your specific niche and lookup for everyone who has bigger audiences on your Niche;
b) start following those wth bigger audiences and start to comment on their comments, providing some value to what you say.
c) do not go just for the follow neither comment things like "follow for following"
d) never forget social media have Social before Media so whatever you post (Media) be always more Social
e) answer EVERY COMMENT, thank EVERY SHARE, answer EVERY DM
f) send DMs to people in your Niche trying to understand how have they grown and how can you too

The idea is that you use your Weekly Newsletter as your Pillar Content and "cut it" into smaller pieces of content. That way you'll be able to provide value every single day in a more digestible way and at the end of each week, you'll send your Newsletter again.

These tactics you can use them on every other SM Platform too

Let me know if I have not been clear or if I can help you! Good luck 💪

You need to find the audience that loves your content. Social Media is one way to do that. However, make it really easy to sign up for the newsletter with a quick email form and then post the archives on Hacker News and other tech-minded sites. That way you get the people with the highest probability of interest registering for future editions.

Some potential sources to find your audience:

1. Show HN
2. One of the StackOverflow sites
3. Write an Article(s) for Hacker Noon
4. Share content on Medium with link to the newsletter

I'd contact anyone and everyone you know who will be interested in your work.

Best thing you've done is produce work.

Now show it. Curate it. Share it. No need for social media if you don't want to use it.

I would however highly recommend communities. Yes, here IH is a community.

LinkedIn, do you consider it a social media? It's perfect for connecting with ppl who you know may be interested. by role, by what they say in their profile. by content.

when reaching out, no matter what: I'd not bother caring how many ppl follow them. Just make the 1-on-1 connection with them. someone with 100 followers on twitter, may have 500 on Linkedin and affect them.

Companies: look for companies you can get into their newsletters/emails to their employees if your newsletter is good for business.

I'd highly recommend jumping on a call with those 25 subscribers and ask them what they're dong. who are they, what's going on in their lives... and oh by the way. Who is one person I should talk to that would like the newsletter? If you do that 25 times you'll double your subscribers.

What other channels are you using if you're not using "social media" ?

If it's only word of mouth, then yep it'll still be possible to grow, just much slower, especially since it's off a smaller base.

Everyone has to start somewhere though and 25 is more than zero :)